Who’s to Blame for the Prosperity Gospel?

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The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.
—1 Samuel 2:7-8a

Yesterday, a reader left this comment:

It’s even worse, it seems, on the black gospel music stations where most of the teaching and much of the music is infected with the widely popular health/wealth/prosperity “gospel.”

I’d like to comment on this by asking why it might be that so many black Christians find prosperity teachings attractive. Money, money, money , money...moneySadly, that’s not a question too many opponents of the “prosperity gospel” dare ask because the ultimate answer strikes a little too close to home.

Consider a similar scenario. Evangelicals who went ballistic over the Emerging Church lacked the nerve to ask why the Emerging Church existed. Many times here, I discussed why: It was a reaction against Evangelicalism’s many blinders, especially on issues of nonexistent community, a lack of social justice for the oppressed, and rampant consumerism.

Yet rather than consider the possible truth of even one scrap of the Emerging Church protest, the loudest voices in Evangelicalism let loose with a tirade about the bad theology in the Emerging Church (and hey, let’s be honest, it was atrocious theology in many cases). Rarely, though, was there any Evangelical self-examination.

I find it both dispiriting and amusing that the very same Christians who idolize the Reformation revert to Catholic theology when it comes to these types of battles.  It’s always their own sins that are venial, while their opponents’ are the most vile, wicked, mortal sins imaginable.

And the same is true of this battle over the so-called prosperity gospel.

It’s not for no reason that the prosperity gospel exists. This may only be my experience, but it seems to me that the loudest voices crying out against the prosperity gospel come from those people who never wanted a day in their lives for anything. They never went to bed hungry. Never saw all the other kids get nice toys for their birthday while they got busted up junk those others threw away. The people who complain loudest against prosperity teachings are most likely to be the same people whose money could buy them out of every problem, and whose lifestyles define prosperity, God or not.

You see, it’s darned easy to come down against someone’s misplaced hope of escaping poverty when you’re already prosperous. In many ways, that viewpoint is the same one that seeks to keep “those people” down, lest “those people” rise up and end the party. And that’s reprehensible self-righteousness and pride.

However, it’s equally reprehensible that many of the proponents of prosperity teaching get rich off the backs of their poor followers. Those false teachers and leaders deserve a special place in hell and may actually find that their hoped for heavenly mansion of gold ends up looking more like a lake of fire.

Yet for all the anti-prosperity-gospel talk out there, the Bible contains more words about prospering this side of heaven than the opponents care to address. The patriarchs were not a poverty-stricken lot. The Lord promises hundreds of times that He will pour out plenty on those who are obedient to Him. He rewards those who seek Him, and not just with spiritual gain, but also material. God leads His people into a land of milk and honey. The reaper overtakes the plowman.

I’m not going to try to proof text this point. If you must, just look up the word prosper in a concordance. God prospers his people both spiritually and materially. It’s there, really; I’m not making it up.

On the other hand, people who put all their trust in the material, who build huge barns to store all their accumulated worldly wealth, often run into an impoverishment of the soul. And that’s a state of being God is none too happy about.

Whether you’re a prosperity gospel fan or foe, whether you can trot out battling Bible verses to bolster your position, the solution to this theological war is found in an achingly simple response. You see God already shows us how to live in a way that satisfies both sides of this issue:

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
—Acts 2:41-45

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
—Acts 4:32-35

Folks, the point is moot. When the Church is living this way, no matter which side you are on in the prosperity gospel battle, you will find your answer here.

But you see, we don’t want to deal with those two passages in Acts because they stand as an indictment against how we live, whether we’re rich or poor. The greed and hard-heartedness that keeps us from fulfilling these passages in Acts today afflicts both those with and those without.

When I mention these verses and ask why we’re not living this way, a million excuses come out. I know; I’ve heard them all. It gets a little depressing.

So maybe in the eyes of God it doesn’t matter if we’ve gone off into “Lord, I name and claim a Lexus—a gold-colored one with goatskin leather seats,” or into the rich, young ruler’s perfect theology framing a heart of cold selfishness. The answer to the problem of the prosperity gospel is staring us in the face.

We simply don’t want to obey God and live it.

 

 

 

Thursday Thoughts and Miscellaneous Ramblings

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When your child comes up to you and sighs, “Dad, are you ever gonna get off the computer?” you know you’ve been crankin’. Work has consumed my every waking second the last ten days, thus the cobwebs and crickets on the blog. It’s great that business has recovered from the lull I experienced the first half of the year, but I’ve actually got a case of tendonitis from spending too much time interfacing with my anti-ergonomic office setup. Heck, my desk and chair are the same ones from when I was 13-years old, so what does that tell you? (Hey, don’t laugh. Ethan Allen is good furniture, unlike the sawdust-board junk coming out of China today.)

Anyway, I’m still hoping to post on genuine revival someday. Got another post that will probably get me delisted from a number of blogs, too, called “The Rescue of Moonbase Asimov!” Genuine storyline in that one. Now if I could just find the time to write them both.

When I don’t have time to write something well-researched and filled with gravitas, I toss out various disconnected thoughts, the kind of sampling that goes on in my head every 1.5 seconds, so it’s true to life, even if it is a bit scary to the uninitiated.

So here goes:

Many of you know that I’ve been advocating a low-glycemic diet. I’ve lost 30 pounds on that diet and kept them off. I’ve even added back in a few “no-no” foods and still kept the weight off. Very cool. What’s uncool is that I finally realized that the three bouts with kidney stones I’ve had in the last seven months are…well, due to the diet. Seems that switching to healthier foods and substituting foods with a lower glycemic index means eating more foods higher in oxylates, calcium oxylate being the primary ingredient in the most common kind of kidney stone. In fact, I checked what I eat and almost every single item is high in oxylates. Some people don’t tolerate that well, and I just happen to be one of those people. Any urologists out there with some advice? Ugh.

If you’ve got an old, unused PC sitting around that might have a 1GB 168-pin PC100/133 ECC DIMM, and you’re willing to sell the DIMM for a cheap price, let me know. I need one badly.

I’ve been too busy to keep up with all the comments on my Lakeland posts, but thanks and welcome to all the first-timers who came and commented. Things are a bit abnormal around here right now blogging-wise, but I hope to get back to my normal schedule soon.

Thank you also to all the people praying for my family in the wake of some of the illnesses we’ve endured recently. Those prayers are still coveted. What’s happened in the last few months is a major reason the blogging continues to suffer.

A number of regional banks are in deep doo-doo, including one I banked at for years, a bank considered in the industry to be one of the best run. In fact, three of the largest banks in my area are in trouble. The problem? Collapsing hedge funds coupled with turmoil in the mortgage industry. In fact, if I were you, I’d be very careful about where you have your money right now. Some big name banks may go belly up. As someone who is familiar with this (I had money in the savings & loan that precipitated the savings & loan crisis long ago), I know the signs. Be careful out  there. Don’t rely on FDIC. We’re in for some nasty bumps ahead.

This continues to be the rainiest spring I can recall. Great sleeping weather, though. Now if only I could find some time to sleep!

Do social networking sites actually DO anything for you? I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, but I’m mystified at what it brings me. Any LinkedIn gurus out there who really know how to play that network?

As a child, the neighbor’s collie used to bite me constantly. When you’re being routinely attacked by Lassie… well, it can scar you for life. Nonetheless, we became dog owners recently.  RosebudWe come to ownership reluctantly as our new mutt (pictured right) was unceremoniously abandoned on our property by yet another heartless fiend. See, we live a mile off a rural highway out in an idyllic spot, and people love to dump their puppies and kittens on our property thinking we’ll take care of them. Here’s a clue: most die. Feral dogs and coyotes mangle the kittens for fun (or else the furballs starve to death) and puppies wind up roadkill or diseased. It breaks my heart that some people are so thoughtless, but then again, even Jodi Minivan is capable of atrocities done in the name of expediency and personal comfort.

More than just about anything else, I want to believe that the American Church is healthy. The facts prove otherwise.  I am weary of people pulling out the “touch not the Lord’s anointed” and “so-called ‘discernment’ is nothing more than divisiveness” trump cards. But hey, what people want to fill themselves with is between them and God. I just want to add this: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” That’s worth memorizing.

Any other men out there at that strange age where you realize that the attractive businesswomen in their early twenties that you run into in the course of your day, the kind you would’ve chatted up in your single days, are now young enough to be your daughters?

I’m old enough to remember that presidential nominations occurred at the party convention. Anyone else remember? You didn’t have a presidential candidate tabbed until then. Quaint, I know. This is why I am deeply disturbed by the events unfolding in the Democratic Party (as if the party isn’t disturbing enough already). You’ve got two candidates that split the vote right down the middle, yet it’s as if one never existed. In another time, Obama and Clinton would’ve both gone into their convention flying high and no one would have thought it unusual to have two viable candidates to choose from in a real, gen-u-wine nominating convention. Instead, you’ve got this travesty of superdelegates that has usurped the people’s vote. And what craven political monsters those superdelegates are. You can bet that most are just trying to save their political futures and alliances rather than thinking about what is best for this country. But hey, I’m in a flyover state, so what do I know.

Man, is there anything more time consuming than trying to switch automatic checking account debits from one bank to another? I’ve spent almost ten hours following up on a dozen of these things and I’m still not done. It’s a great convenience when you don’t have to pay the bills, but the act of switching may undo all the time you saved!

In that same vein, the older I get, the more I see that all our time-saving devices don’t really save us time. They only make life more frantic trying to pay for and maintain them.

With age also comes this serious question: How do most people live? (Darned if I know.)

The box of store brand chocolate-chip cookies that was $1.29 last year is now $2.19. I don’t know who these economists are who keep talking about the slow, meager rise in consumer prices, but going from $1.29 to $2.19 in a year is not “a slow, meager rise.”

We’re seeing wild turkeys on our property regularly. I never saw turkeys around here until just the last few years. Now I see them everywhere.

On the other hand, the rural highway near us looks like a deer abattoir. Talk in the insurance industry has insurance companies ditching payment for accidents involving deer. Nice.

The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of record in the Edelen household, could not be any more schizophrenic than it is right now on the topic of the economy. Every day they print a flurry of editorials talking about the fact that the country is NOT slipping into recession (or worse), yet their business pages are filled with one company after another reporting massive downturns in revenue or declaring bankruptcy outright. My take? Too many rich pundits are out of touch with how “the other half” live.

Considering all the spurious commentary on my part so far, I want to end with a serious question: When was the last time a stranger came up to you and asked whether you were born again? Used to happen to me all the time more than a decade ago, but almost never now. Now we can say that’s because people found that form of evangelism to be unproductive, but are we just lying to ourselves? Maybe we’re not really all that interested anymore in evangelism and where people spend eternity. Does any legitimate reason exist that you and I can’t help lead at least one person to Christ each year? Honestly?

Have a great weekend.

Banking on God: Series Compendium and Final Thoughts

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Judging by the many comments and private e-mails I’ve received on this series “Banking on God,” I’d say that a fair number of people found it challenging. Thank you for reading through it and for participating in the polls. I pray that it’s been a blessing.

All posts (minus the initial non-commented poll pages) in the “Banking on God” series:

Banking on God: The Tithe, Part 1

Banking on God: The Tithe, Part 2

Banking on God: Church Finances, Part 1

Banking on God: Church Finances, Part 2

Banking on God: Theology, Part 1

Banking on God: Theology, Part 2

Banking on God: Theology, Part 3

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 1

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 2

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 3

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 4

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 5

It’s been a wild series with some wild comments, for sure!

I hope that we as a Church in this country can get a better grasp on money. God wants us to always be prepared to go “all in” should He give the word. We need to Spirit-led and far more generous than we are on the issue of giving, be it money or any other kind of resource. Should tribulation come, we should be well prepared to meet it, even if it means that we adopt ways of living we never previously would have explored.

The Christian life is countercultural in all it does because our Lord Himself transcended culture and drew ALL peoples to Himself. How can we live any differently than He did?

Be blessed.